{"id":18972,"date":"2025-01-13T09:46:19","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T09:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=18972"},"modified":"2025-01-13T09:46:19","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T09:46:19","slug":"shocking-prediction-wild-card-weekend-nfl-takeaways-bills-vs-ravens-game-will-be-an-absolute-thriller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=18972","title":{"rendered":"SHOCKING PREDICTION: Wild-Card Weekend NFL Takeaways \u2013 Bills vs. Ravens Game Will Be an Absolute Thriller!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Plus, how the Eagles\u2019 defense improved, Jayden Daniels is nails, notes on the Patriots hiring Mike Vrabel, how Vikings-Rams was moved to Arizona and much more.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"Josh<\/picture><\/figure>\n
Josh Allen takes the field before the wild-card game against the Broncos. Buffalo will be home against next week against the Ravens. \/ Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Jump to a topic<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
    \n
  1. Looking ahead to Bills-Ravens<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Ravens over Steelers<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Eagles over Packers<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Commanders over Buccaneers<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n
  5. Texans over Chargers<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n
  6. Patriots hire Mike Vrabel<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n
  7. Titans\u2019 offseason changes<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n
  8. Tom Brady and the Raiders<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n
  9. Rams-Vikings moved to Arizona<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n
  10. Quick hitters<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n

    Looking ahead to Bills-Ravens<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    The Buffalo Bills\u2013Baltimore Ravens game should be electric.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Both teams look rested and like they\u2019re peaking. And we\u2019re going to start in Buffalo where, on Sunday, the Bills looked again like a punches-in-bunches kind of juggernaut\u2014where a close game can get out of hand quickly.<\/p>\n

    But maybe most notable to me was how the game started, and how Buffalo responded.<\/p>\n

    On the game\u2019s third play, Denver Broncos rookie Bo Nix delivered a dart on a deep in-breaker by Courtland Sutton to convert a third-and-8. Two plays later, Nix took a shot off a deep drop, going downfield to connect with Troy Franklin for a 42-yard score. So less than three minutes in, the Bills, under plenty of pressure to deliver this January, were down 7\u20130 against an upstart Broncos team clearly taking a house-money approach to the afternoon.<\/p>\n

    It looked messy from the outset, and the Bills certainly could\u2019ve felt the stakes. Instead, they followed their leaders.<\/p>\n

    \u201cI\u2019m always going to stay optimistic,\u201d future Hall of Famer Von Miller told me over his cell, from the locker room postgame. \u201cIt\u2019s all I know. That\u2019s the energy I brought today. I just have so much faith in our defensive coaches, and I know how the playoffs go. All the teams are good. They\u2019re going to get some punches in. We\u2019re going to get some punches in, too. We just got to make sure we got more points than them at the end of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

    As Miller said, both teams threw plenty of punches from that point in the first quarter. The Bills just wound up landing way more of them.<\/p>\n

    Thirty-one unanswered points later, and Buffalo advanced to the divisional round for the fifth consecutive year. And it\u2019s in the divisional round where the Bills have lost for the past three years. For Buffalo to get to the AFC championship, the Bills will have to beat the Ravens, who handled them easily in a 35\u201310 rout in September (to be fair, the Ravens have fewer playoff wins with Lamar Jackson than the Bills do with Josh Allen).<\/p>\n

    On Sunday, we got a glimpse, again, of why this group might be different. Yes, Josh Allen played like an MVP candidate, throwing for 272 yards, two scores and a 135.4 rating on 20-of-26 passing. But it was more than that. It was how Buffalo ran for 210 yards. It was how Allen completed passes to eight different guys, with all eight targeted more than once and six having multiple catches. It was how, after the first drive, the Bills\u2019 defense held the Broncos to just 154 yards and 11 first downs, while shutting them out.<\/p>\n

    Allen\u2019s awesome, of course, but Buffalo\u2019s balance\u00a0just might<\/em>\u00a0be the difference.<\/p>\n

    \u201cIt all starts with Josh,\u201d Miller says. \u201cHe\u2019s an elite quarterback. Your team is just a shade of who your quarterback is. It starts with Josh and translates down to everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

    But in this case, again how the word \u201ceverybody\u201d comes into play makes a difference.<\/p>\n

    We\u2019ll know how much of a difference soon.<\/p>\n

    For now, though, as Miller continued to paint himself as the eternal optimist\u2014\u201cEven [when I played] in Denver, when we probably shouldn\u2019t have won a game, I still felt like we had a chance to win the Super Bowl\u201d\u2014they can at least hang their hat on the number of guys who can throw the aforementioned punches. It\u2019s allowed them to use a veteran like Miller as a specialist, which has juiced his production of late. It\u2019s made them more difficult for an opponent to handle.<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s given them a look that Miller saw before, both in Denver and with the Los Angeles Rams.<\/p>\n

    \u201cI can\u2019t compare to those guys,\u201d Miller says, referencing the champion 2015 Broncos and \u201921 Rams. \u201cBut I know we got a great quarterback. We play great defense. The energy of this team, I can\u2019t put my finger on it yet. We got to keep working and keep winning. In a couple weeks, we\u2019ll figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

    We may not have to wait that long.<\/p>\n

    In fact, it sure feels like we\u2019ll know a lot more in six days.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Plus, how the Eagles\u2019 defense improved, Jayden Daniels is nails, notes on the Patriots hiring Mike Vrabel, how Vikings-Rams was moved to Arizona and much more. Josh… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hot-news","category-nfl"],"yoast_head":"\nSHOCKING PREDICTION: Wild-Card Weekend NFL Takeaways \u2013 Bills vs. Ravens Game Will Be an Absolute Thriller! - 24\/7 News America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/usatoday.azontree.com\/?p=18972\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SHOCKING PREDICTION: Wild-Card Weekend NFL Takeaways \u2013 Bills vs. Ravens Game Will Be an Absolute Thriller! - 24\/7 News America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Plus, how the Eagles\u2019 defense improved, Jayden Daniels is nails, notes on the Patriots hiring Mike Vrabel, how Vikings-Rams was moved to Arizona and much more. 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